Additional files in support of the "Best of Both Worlds"

In 2024, the ICSP ratified the 'Best of Both Worlds' (BoBW) proposal for the formal regulation of Candidatus names within the ICNP. The outcome of the vote on this proposal, as well as the preceding online discussion, has been documented in the IJSEM. In response to the debate, however, the authors of the BoBW proposal prepared additional files, which are publicly available in a single PDF document here. This PDF includes: a link to the online petition in support of BoBW and against the acceptance of the SeqCode by the ICSP; the Letter of Support for BoBW from the World Federation of Culture Collections; the Letter of Support for BoBW from the U.S. Culture Collections Network; the detailed rebuttal of the arguments against BoBW by Whitman and Venter (2024). Two things stand out in particular: The number of signatories in favour of BoBW (and against the acceptance of the SeqCode by the ICSP) is more than one order of magnitude higher than the number of signatories in support of the paper by Whitman and Venter (2024). Figure 1 in the Whitman and Venter (2024) paper is of particularly low intellectual quality, raising questions about why it passed the journal's peer review process and why it was supported by renowned scientists.